If the claims of Christianity are indeed true, as the Christian so emphatically insists, this should be an easy one. After all, Davelone’s challenge makes no request to produce evidence of the Christian god (something no religionist has done so far incidentally). Instead, this challenge only asks that the Christian identify the principle by which he can dismiss all rival supernatural claims (Dave lists a couple above) AND still maintain that Christianity is the one true and proper ‘worldview’. That’s all. It seems that, if the Christian has such a principle, he should be able to tell us what it is. Why does he stall???

It seems to me, however, that if one principle can dismiss one form of supernaturalism, shouldn’t that same principle also apply to all other forms of supernaturalism? Conversely, if faith (i.e., mysticism) ‘validates’ one form of supernaturalism, would not that faith also ‘validate’ all other forms of supernaturalism?

How can the supernaturalist, while objecting to rival supernaturalistic claims, defend his own claims at the same time?

If one subscribes to a particular worldview that is subjective* in nature, how can he object to, dismiss or in any way disparage other worldviews that are also subjective in nature??

*Remember: Subjectivism is the view that existence finds its source in a form of consciousness.

Is there any rational means (i.e., principles) by which the Christian can meet this challenge??

I for one am waiting for a reply to this challenge.

I remember in a post some time ago (see my post "The Crucible", March 13, 1998) I had asked this question. WWCKFS (who has been silent for a long time now... hmmm...) wriggled his way out of this question by saying that he does not ‘dismiss’ rival supernaturalistic claims, but indeed considers ‘rival gods’ to be in fact DEMONS and DEVILS that have hoodwinked large populations of humanity. I mention this because I could see other Christians attempting this course of dishonesty, evasion and ruse, preferring to escape any positive statement of his own principles at the cost of intellectual integrity (i.e., in true altruistic fashion, the Christian, in this case, sacrifices his mind - oh, I forgot, he already has done this!!).

If this is the way the Christian wants to play, then I ask how the Christian can dismiss the claims that Wotan, Allah, Brahma, Zeus, Gumbygod, Blarko, Zarathustra, Buddha, Dalai Lama, Doot-Eckies, Dastrophil, At-Amman, Jufaris, Tarlo, Hoffa-god, Tepperine, Cu, Jeraz, Boz-Ott, Tletlican, Kalfulos, Bikshtu, Ilsezaro, Flanga and a whole host of other declared ‘gods’ are not in fact holy gods, while at the same time the same Christian declares that his Jesus or Jehova is god? By what principle can the Christian dismiss rival ‘gods’ of their divinity while buying into the notion that his ‘god’ is real?

As AirwaveBoy (Nick) had mentioned in one of his posts a week or so back, there were - prior to the stories of Jesus - similar tales of crucified saviors which the Christian church has tried (with great but not total success) to stamp out. These tales developed before the Christian version of Jesus Christ being nailed to the cross in AD 33 (or whenever it may have been, if at all). This tells us that the Christian version is merely a mythic variation of the original tales, which predated Christianity by hundreds of years in some cases. Among those alleged crucified saviors are:

(The initials "BC" above commonly refer to "Before Christ"; one may like to observe that it really means "Before Confusion".)

The life of each of these crucified ‘saviors’ resembles the life of our famous ‘Jesus’ to such uncanny degree that one can hardly help think - especially when considering the fact that all of these instances predate the Christian Jesus - that the Christian Jesus is just another variation of the same tale or collection of tales that has managed to survive (probably through untold Church tyranny and censorship). Does anyone else suspect this, or am I alone in this thought??

Regardless, the issue stands. The Christians present in this discussion have demonstrated enough literacy to understand the question that has been put forth. Now it is up to the Christian to answer for himself. Integrity is the key in a genuine answer to this question. As Davelone has asked in his recent posts: Is the Christian willing to STICK TO HIS PRINCIPLE, come hell or high water?????

Hope to see you soon,

Tindrbox

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